Optical imaging of a specimen such as a biological specimen has always been a formidable and challenging task because the complex microscopic structure of tissues causing strong scattering of the incident radiation. The invention of confocal microscopy and its advanced development in the past few years have provided the researcher the capability to study biological specimens including living organisms without the need for tissue resection and histological processing. However, the presence of multiple scattering in samples limits confocal microscopy to specimens which are thin and mostly transparent. There is a need, therefore, for new optical methods capable of in vivo imaging deeper inside highly scattering tissues and other biological specimens.
Optical coherence tomography (“OCT”) is a technology that allows for noninvasive, cross-sectional optical imaging in biological media with high spatial resolution and high sensitivity. OCT is an extension of low coherence or white-light interferometry, in which a low temporal coherence light source is utilized to obtain precise localization of reflections internal to a probed structure along an optic axis (i.e., as a function of depth into the sample). OCT delivers high resolution because it is based on light, rather than sound or radio frequency. An optical beam is directed at the tissue, and a small portion of this light that reflects from sub-surface features is collected. In this, most of the light is not reflected but, rather, scatters. The scattered light has lost its original direction and does not contribute to forming an image but rather contributes to glare. Using the OCT technique, scattered light can be filtered out, completely removing the glare. Even the very tiny proportion of reflected light that is not scattered can then be detected and used to form the image. In the OCT instrument, an optical interferometer is used in such a manner as to detect only coherent light. In the process the depth and the intensity of the light reflected from a sub-surface feature is obtained. A three-dimensional image can be built by scanning, as in a sonar or radar system. The most commonly used interferometers in these devices are Michelson and Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) which are well-known.
References [1, 2] report an interferometric system which comprises a Michelson Interferometer for imaging using OCT. The signal is detected by a grating based spectrometer equipped with a linear detector array (or a line-scan camera).
U.S. Pat. No. 7,443,514 discloses a system and method for using a spatial light modulator (SLM) which may be a GLV (Grating light valve, as described in reference 3), to perform a null test of an (aspheric) optical surface, where the system comprises a Michelson interferometer. If the input signal comprises of a broad-band-wavelength light, a grating light valve separates the light into light with narrow-band-wavelengths and outputs them sequentially at different time intervals in a single output fiber. A GLV is a type of a tunable filter.
In the above (U.S. Pat. No. 7,443,514) disclosed prior art, while the interferometer used is the Michelson Interferometer, the specimen tested is a non-living, highly controlled optical element, and no ranging (or OCT imaging) operation is performed. In contrast, our device will perform measurements in scattering specimens such as biological specimens and other non-living highly scattering specimens such as a sponge. Our device will also perform a ranging operation and OCT imaging in living and non-living specimens.
In U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,847,827 and 7,079,256 B2, the Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) is built using bulk optical elements and uses time-domain form of optical-coherence-tomography. Spectral-domain OCT using MZI has not yet been reported.
Further, OCT interferometric systems known in the art are complex in arranging optical devices and expensive as well as not portable.
Accordingly, there is a need for compact, portable and economical interferometric system that works in reflection mode than transmission mode.